Golden Dream
by Aethenos
Summary: It's been a hard time adjusting to life after the war with Cinder's forces. Ruby wanted to be normal, once, and maybe even wants that again. Maybe she just wishes that one of her best friends would start taking care of himself again. But when trouble brews in Menagerie, a mysterious Faunus man appears in Vale, and Jaune suddenly becomes active once more, it all crashes down.
1. Chapter 1

Ruby wanted to be a normal girl, once. She wanted to live a normal life, have normal friends, go to a normal school. Maybe settle down for a normal marriage with a normal husband and have normal kids.

She gave all that up when she and her sister were nearly killed by a pack of Beowolves. She gave it all up again when Beacon was destroyed by the machinations of Cinder Fall.

Everyone lost something that day. Everyone lost a lot that horrible day.

Over the next few years, everyone lost a lot more.

Friends died, innocents suffered; and all in all, it was kind of a horrible time to be a Huntsman. To be a hero.

Through it all, there was one person Ruby always felt she could depend on. One person who never balked at the challenge. One person who took charge, fought hard, and pulled his team through this.

It made it jarring to see him now.

She stood in the light rain of an early spring morning, watching Jaune Arc snore beside the grave of Pyrrha Nikos.

The damned fool had taken his coat off and laid it on the ground.

To keep her dry.

A year ago, Ruby might have cried to see him like this.

A month, and though tears might well in her eyes, she would have struggled to get him home.

She was used to it now, and it stung like a knife in her heart.

Ruby sighed and turned to Ren.

"Looks like he's been out here all night," the quiet young man said, "I have no idea how he keeps sneaking out."

Ruby forced a smile onto her face, for Ren's sake. "Don't beat yourself up, Ren. He's crafty like that."

Ren sighed softly, clearly still upset with himself.

Jaune reminded the pair that he was still around by snoring loudly.

He truly looked the part of the vagabond, in those days. Unshaven, covered in dirt, wearing old clothing.

Some time ago, to her dismay, Ruby noticed that he'd stopped carrying his sword. She learned from Nora that he'd returned it to his father, despite the fact that the two men were as far from seeing eye to eye as a father and his son could be.

"Come on, Jaune," Ruby said soothingly as she knelt down beside him, "It's time to wake up. She wouldn't want to see you like this."

Jaune slowly blinked awake as Ruby shook him gently. He looked up at her, eyes bleary from sleep and tears, before cracking a smile that was far from convincing.

"Hey, Crater Face. How's it going?"

Ruby felt the knife in her heart twisting as he spoke. She knew it was a show, and he knew he wasn't fooling anyone, so why wouldn't he just admit it?

Jaune Arc was bereft of purpose, adrift on a sea of his own self-loathing.

Everyone knew it, but no one wanted to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

Jaune clearly had no further interest in life.


	2. Chapter 2

Jaune felt himself in a pool of darkness, rather like warm water up to his chin. He couldn't breathe, he realized, but the choking sensation was somehow... Irrelevant. He couldn't find the energy to concern himself with it.

Slowly, a light began to form above him, but even as a pinprick, it was blindingly brilliant.

As his eyes adjusted at an agonizing pace, Jaune was certain that he could hear someone calling his name, desperately.

 _Jaune_ , the voice seemed to cry, _Jaune, please wake up!_

He squinted into the light, but Jaune couldn't make out anything distinct.

Except the voice, clearer now, and distinctly female.

And so familiar.

The world was a blur as Jaune opened his eyes in the real world.

The haze of sleep and tears the night before combined to make a dense fog.

But through it all, Jaune could make out a face, framed in red, staring down at him with kind eyes.

The name was on his tongue before his rational brain could stop it, but he cut himself off before he made a huge mistake.

"Hey, Crater Face," he said, his usual false smile coming back to him, "How's it going?"

Jaune could read Ruby's reaction well enough to know that she was upset. He also knew that it was probably because of his actions.

"Jaune, you can't keep doing this," Ruby said, her voice trembling slightly, "You're going to make yourself sick."

"Yeah... Yeah, I know. Sorry, Ruby. I didn't mean to, y'know, cause a big commotion or anything."

Ruby sighed and picked Jaune's jacket up from where he'd left it on Pyrrha's grave.

"You know we all care about you," she said as she draped it over him, "Right?"

Jaune stared intently away from the conversation, no longer capable of maintaining eye contact.

Ruby offered a hand to help him up and a smile to feebly try to defuse the tension their conversations always had these days.

Jaune stood up on his own.

Ren held out a paper bag, a still warm breakfast he'd packed for when they inevitably found Jaune alone in a cemetery.

"You need to eat."

Jaune wiped away the remnants of his tears and smiled at Ren.

"Thanks, man," he said, "I don't know where I'd be without you."

 _Probably the ground beside her_ , Ren thought darkly. He wisely chose to keep his mouth shut, face as impassive as ever.

The trio went back to Ren's apartment together by bus.

It wasn't a particularly large apartment, only two bedrooms, but it was home. Sort of.

Ren was at home wherever Nora was, but she was away on a mission and wouldn't be back for a few days.

Jaune, having taken up the second bedroom, felt more at home with a tombstone for company, but none of them really wanted to think about that.

Nora would be happy to just be with Ren, but her appetite for violence had to be sated now and then.

Ruby wondered what it was like for the remaining members of Team JNPR, to all be living together like that. In a way, she envied the sense of family they maintained despite everything they'd been through.

She thought of her own team, and the Balkanization that occurred following Cinder's defeat.

Then she thought of Pyrrha and resolved to stop thinking for a bit.

Ren sat Jaune down at their table and forced him to eat. As soon as Jaune was done, Ren ushered him into the bathroom, demanding that he bathe himself.

With Jaune out of the way and only Ruby for company, Ren felt it safe to take a quiet moment to break down on the couch.

"I don't know what to do, Ruby. I try everything I can think of, but I can't force him to want to live. Only she could do that, but she's gone."

Ren's voice shook as he spoke; for once he allowed his words to tumble out of their own accord.

"Every day, I have to remind him to eat, to sleep, to just perform basic self-maintenance. He doesn't fight, but-"

Ruby placed a hand on Ren's shoulder, startling him. She mulled over her options for a moment before speaking.

"I worry about him all the time, too. Maybe we can see if he'd do better at my place? I mean, it's not a big place, but I miss him. I live further away, so he can't sneak out as easily. You and Nora could probably use a break... And maybe some privacy."

Ren's eyes narrowed at the implication.

"And what do you mean by that?"

Ruby stuck the tip of her tongue out at him.

"Oh, nothing, Ren. I guess I'm just being silly."

The two of them talked for a while longer as they waited for Jaune to finish bathing.

As they spoke, he showered quickly and toweled himself off.

Jaune decided, on a whim, to shave; and suddenly he found another excuse to not leave the bathroom yet.

Jaune stared at his reflection when he finished. He found himself disgusted by what he saw.

The dull blue eyes, the heavy bags under them.

He had never considered himself handsome before, but Jaune was certain he didn't always look this bad.

For a brief moment, the world stopped. The lights flickered, and in the darkness, Jaune saw something.

Heard something.

Something familiar.

Ruby let a sentence trail off as the door to the bathroom creaked open. She looked over and saw Jaune, towel around his waist, ducking into his bedroom.

Her heart skipped a beat a little when she realized something.

He was still muscular. He hadn't been neglecting his body as much as she thought.

A smile crept onto her face.

"Ren, be sure to tell him about my idea. I gotta jet."

Ren nodded, somewhat perplexed by Ruby's newfound energy, but he dared not question it.

Ruby felt better than she had in a long time as she walked back to her own apartment. Something about seeing Jaune's body made her feel a lot better about the situation he was in.

She tried not to think too hard about that. That'd just be awkward.


	3. Chapter 3

The dream came again that night.

The strangling sensation, the oppressive weight and heat of the darkness. The feeling of water up to his neck.

Jaune noted only one difference.

"Jaune, please, wake up!"

The voice was so clear. It rang in Jaune's ears like a knife in his brain. No, in his heart.

It was a woman's voice; low, but distinctly feminine. The voice shook as she spoke, calling out in a voice so familiar.

"Jaune, please. You can't go on like this. Please... Jaune..."

Jaune tried to force his eyes open, hoping to get a glimpse of the person calling out to him.

All he got was the ceiling of his room in Ren's apartment.

Nora crouched low as she approached her prey. One wrong move, and she would ruin it. This task required the utmost caution that the boisterous young woman could manage.

She slowly crawled from cover to cover as she crept ever closer. Soon, she felt it was time to strike. Wiggling in anticipation, she leapt into the air and screamed "Banzai!" at the top of her lungs.

Ren whirled around from where he'd been standing at the stove, armed with a piece of pancake on the end of a fork.

With a precision strike at Nora's vulnerable mouth, he stopped her forward momentum and caught her utterly off guard.

The sudden pancake in her mouth left Nora senseless. She thought she'd had the upper hand, but no. Ren had cruelty ripped away her dreams of startling him and tickling him senseless. She was left adrift on a sea of woe, with only the cold comfort of a warm panca-

"Nora, you're spacing out again."

Nora giggled and began nuzzling Ren.

"Sorry, I was just waxing poetic in my head. You know how it is."

Ren chuckled the smallest of chuckles, sending Nora's heart racing.

"No, I really don't. Now, may I finish before the rest of the pancakes burn?"

Jaune stalked out of his room in a daze, his vision hazy from another restless night.

"Hey, guys," he groaned at Ren and Nora as he went to root around in the fridge for the apple juice.

After a brief moment, he leaned away from the fridge and stared perplexedly at Nora.

"What are _you_ doing home?"

Nora, busy nuzzling Ren's arm, looked up at him with a proud, murderous glee.

"So I was out there hunting this really elusive Grimm with a bunch of other Huntsmen, right?"

"Well, three days into the hunt, I catch a glimpse of the beast in the distance. It looks like a new variety of beast-type Grimm, so I stalk the thing for a few hours, just taking notes.

"The thing was kinda like a Beowolf, but it was walking around on all fours, and it didn't have a normal mouth, either!"

Jaune and Ren listened as Nora described her exploits in the field.

As she spoke, Jaune felt himself growing more self conscious of the fact that he was practically out of a job. He started to wonder if, for the sake of his friends, he ought to get back in the game.

"And then I said, 'I hope you're hungry, because I brought snacks!' And I shoved a grenade into its weird mouth hole! It gets off me, trying to get the grenade out, but it's no good! Kablooie! Grimm, zilch; Nora, the conquering queen~!"

Nora smiled serenely, a smile utterly at odds with her love for violence.

Ren patted Nora on the head, causing her to go back to snuggling him.

Following breakfast, the three of them piled onto Ren's couch to watch the news. All of them at least nominally being Huntsmen, they felt it important to keep up to date with the world.

Jaune's throat tightened when he saw the headline.

An emergency in Menagerie. A massive death toll, the eradication of their standing defense forces, and a mass exodus of Faunus following the inevitable Grimm incursion.

But the worst part was the culprits.

Armed men were seen across the island, slaughtering defense forces and civilians alike.

Jaune clenched his fists tightly, digging his nails into the palms of his hands.

There hadn't been a terrorist action on this scale since the fall of Vale.

Since Cinder died.

A million thoughts raced through his mind. Was Cinder back, somehow? No, that's impossible; he helped put her in the ground.

Had Mercury or Neo reared their ugly heads? Couldn't be; while certainly capable of it, neither of them had the drive to bother putting something like this together.

Jaune racked his brain trying to figure out if the event fit the MO of any of the survivors of Cinder's forces. As he thought and thought, he felt the bile of his hatred coming back up. He was about ready to go and split the heads of whoever was responsible.

"Jaune," Nora whimpered, "Please, calm down."

Jaune came back to reality and found himself standing. He felt something wet in his hands and looked down at his palms. Somehow, he'd dug through the callouses on his hands and drawn blood.

"Sorry," he mumbled, and went to clean the injury.

He made a mental note to trim his nails at some point.


End file.
